Bhutan Landscape Anomaly: Possible Effect on Himalayan Economy (In View of Optimal Description of Elevation Profiles)

Nguyen Ngoc Thach, Laxman Bokati, Aaron Velasco, Vladik Kreinovich

Abstract

Economies ofcountries located in seismic zones are strongly effected by thisseismicity. If we underestimate the seismic activity, then areasonably routine earthquake can severely damage the existingstructures and thus, lead to huge economic losses. On the otherhand, if we overestimate the seismic activity, we waste a lot ofresources on unnecessarily fortifying all the buildings -- andthis too harms the economies. From this viewpoint, it is desirableto have estimations of regional seismic activities which are asaccurate as possible. Current predictions are mostly based on thestandard geophysical understanding of earthquakes as being largelycaused by the movement of tectonic plates and terranes. Thisunderstanding works in most areas, but in Bhutan area of theHimalayas region, there seems to be a landscape anomaly. As aresult, for this region, we have less confidence in the accuracyof seismic predictions based on the standard understanding andthus, have to use higher seismic thresholds in construction. Inthis paper, we find the optimal description oflandscape-describing elevation profiles, and we use thisdescription to show that the seeming anomaly is actually inperfect agreement with the standard understanding of the seismicactivity. Our conclusion is that it is safe to apply, in thisregion, estimates based on the standard understanding and thus,avoid unnecessary expenses caused by an increased threshold.